vane and began backsliding into her old vices. She was now offering to compromise on a due-easterly heading in response to my demand that she head south, pleading like an insolent teenager that I should let her go to Africa if not to Ireland. This would not do.
Again and again I tinkered with rudder line tension, vane angle, sail trim, and supplications to the self-steering gods as I sat in the tossing, rain-slicked cockpit, miles south of Charleston, well offshore, loosely draped in a leaking ten-dollar raincoat that was more symbolic than actual shelter against the elements.
Finally, the vane held the boat on a southeasterly course for more than a few moments. I waited expectantly for her to veer off again, but she did not. It appeared that I had found that magic “groove” in which sails, hull, and rudder work in a cacophony of cross-purposes that drive the vessel in a single intended direction. Contented with this effort and congratulating myself for not giving in to the weather gods, I retired again to the warmth and shelter of the cabin against the cold night.
I was exhausted. Sleep, when it does come in periods of rough weather, is fitful at best. As I lay down to rest that night in the belly of the whale that was my little ship, I became accustomed, as I usually do, to the motion of the boat on her heading. Lying prone in the six-foot four-inch pilot berth that runs along the port side on the ship’s stern quarter, I was below the waterline. My body rose and fell and swayed from side to side—more gently because I was low in the ship’s center of gravity—in unison with the hull moving through the waves. On this broad reach, with the wind coming over her port quarter and her sails set to starboard, the ship plunged forward with a regularity that recalled the nodding head of a child’s rocking horse. By the repetition of this motion I was lulled once again to sleep. Two hours later, by the unmistakable interruption of that motion, I was shaken rudely awake.
It was sometime near four in the morning, I can only guess. I had long since abandoned the niceties of log-keeping in these troublesome hours. I awoke to find that the wind and seas had risen a notch higher. Together these forces had broken the will of the self-steering vane, and the Gypsy Moon had returned to an easterly imperative. It was Africa or nothing, my headstrong ship was telling me. There would be no southerly heading that night.
I was not prepared for a fistfight with the Gulf Stream, where I was clearly headed. Nor would such a contest have been to any purpose, for I would only be stopped still by that current, if not carried slowly backward to the place from whence I had come. Time and again, I tinkered with the wind vane, collapsing for a while in the pilot berth until the flapping of sails and increasing angle of heel signaled the ship’s renewed objection to my command.
This battle of wills continued until dawn, when I finally hove to the boat under a gray sky. Taking my position, I saw that I had come some twenty miles south of Charleston. I knew I had to return there to seek shelter, and a wave of regret overcame me that I had not turned back many miles earlier, when the autopilot had first failed.
I remember the feeling of defeat in that moment. I had no delusions of grandeur or heroic fate, but I had harbored the private conceit that my voyage in some small way enjoyed the protection of God’s providence and mercy. It seemed contrary to His plans and mine that I should be foiled in my effort to reach Nassau, headed as I was on a mission of charity to the church there. Perhaps in that regard God had taken my altruistic intentions no more seriously than I had taken them myself.
Who, after all, was I really fooling? I had only to look in the mirror to see a spoiled, self-involved, middle-aged man in the throes of a midlife crisis, running from an adulterous affair, a failed marriage, and a failed career. But I could also look in the
Again and again I tinkered with rudder line tension, vane angle, sail trim, and supplications to the self-steering gods as I sat in the tossing, rain-slicked cockpit, miles south of Charleston, well offshore, loosely draped in a leaking ten-dollar raincoat that was more symbolic than actual shelter against the elements.
Finally, the vane held the boat on a southeasterly course for more than a few moments. I waited expectantly for her to veer off again, but she did not. It appeared that I had found that magic “groove” in which sails, hull, and rudder work in a cacophony of cross-purposes that drive the vessel in a single intended direction. Contented with this effort and congratulating myself for not giving in to the weather gods, I retired again to the warmth and shelter of the cabin against the cold night.
I was exhausted. Sleep, when it does come in periods of rough weather, is fitful at best. As I lay down to rest that night in the belly of the whale that was my little ship, I became accustomed, as I usually do, to the motion of the boat on her heading. Lying prone in the six-foot four-inch pilot berth that runs along the port side on the ship’s stern quarter, I was below the waterline. My body rose and fell and swayed from side to side—more gently because I was low in the ship’s center of gravity—in unison with the hull moving through the waves. On this broad reach, with the wind coming over her port quarter and her sails set to starboard, the ship plunged forward with a regularity that recalled the nodding head of a child’s rocking horse. By the repetition of this motion I was lulled once again to sleep. Two hours later, by the unmistakable interruption of that motion, I was shaken rudely awake.
It was sometime near four in the morning, I can only guess. I had long since abandoned the niceties of log-keeping in these troublesome hours. I awoke to find that the wind and seas had risen a notch higher. Together these forces had broken the will of the self-steering vane, and the Gypsy Moon had returned to an easterly imperative. It was Africa or nothing, my headstrong ship was telling me. There would be no southerly heading that night.
I was not prepared for a fistfight with the Gulf Stream, where I was clearly headed. Nor would such a contest have been to any purpose, for I would only be stopped still by that current, if not carried slowly backward to the place from whence I had come. Time and again, I tinkered with the wind vane, collapsing for a while in the pilot berth until the flapping of sails and increasing angle of heel signaled the ship’s renewed objection to my command.
This battle of wills continued until dawn, when I finally hove to the boat under a gray sky. Taking my position, I saw that I had come some twenty miles south of Charleston. I knew I had to return there to seek shelter, and a wave of regret overcame me that I had not turned back many miles earlier, when the autopilot had first failed.
I remember the feeling of defeat in that moment. I had no delusions of grandeur or heroic fate, but I had harbored the private conceit that my voyage in some small way enjoyed the protection of God’s providence and mercy. It seemed contrary to His plans and mine that I should be foiled in my effort to reach Nassau, headed as I was on a mission of charity to the church there. Perhaps in that regard God had taken my altruistic intentions no more seriously than I had taken them myself.
Who, after all, was I really fooling? I had only to look in the mirror to see a spoiled, self-involved, middle-aged man in the throes of a midlife crisis, running from an adulterous affair, a failed marriage, and a failed career. But I could also look in the
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